International Banking Problems

[LawrenceChard]

I don't know if this is just Barclays Bank, but we just received a response to a query we made:

Hi xxx,

I hope you are well

That is correct unfortunately we have stopped accepting international cheques at this time,

We will continue to accept them however we have not been provided a timescale as yet.

The advice states to either hold on to the cheque or to request the client to send an international transfer instead until the service is back up and running.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and will let you know as soon as this service is available again

Kind regards

(Barclays Bank)

[Roy]

24 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Hi xxx,

You allow them to call you 'Loz'? How rude! 😛

I don't know if you reproduced the email faithfully, but what a poorly constructed piece. Standards have certainly dropped at Barclays.

I made an international transfer (digital) to Barclays yesterday and it went through ok.

[LawrenceChard]

14 minutes ago, Roy said:

You allow them to call you 'Loz'? How rude! 😛

I don't know if you reproduced the email faithfully, but what a poorly constructed piece. Standards have certainly dropped at Barclays.

I made an international transfer (digital) to Barclays yesterday and it went through ok.

Sure, they recommend to use transfers; their problem is with processing cheques, but don't state why.

😎

[chasetyre]

I would suspect it is due to costs. Greedy bank wanting to make even more money.

Don't doubt it's far cheaper for the banks to make digital transfers rather than the old fashioned cheques.

Wasn't it only a couple of years ago that the Bank of England (or might have been the government) were going to scrap cheques altogether and make every one use electronic transfers.

I wonder who was pushing for that, as it was certainly not the general public.

Perhaps Barclays are trying to do that through the back door, oh dear our system not working, we will fix it at some point, but not until we convince every one to us electronic transfers first

Edited July 8, 2022 by chasetyre

[Bigmarc]

2 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

but don't state why.

I recently opened an account and they said I was going to get a cheque book, I did chuckle. 

Do travelers cheques still exist? 

[chasetyre]

perhaps I got carried away a bit

Edited July 8, 2022 by chasetyre

[dicker]

Apologise with a “z”. 

Vile.  

[LawrenceChard]

6 minutes ago, dicker said:

Apologise with a “z”. 

Vile.  

In general, I prefer to use "s", and I know Americans prefer "z", although it's probably because they are unaware of any alternative. Spellcheckers frequently try to "correct" me!

Most Brits now also appear unable to spell, use good grammar or syntax.

😎

 

[LawrenceChard]

35 minutes ago, dicker said:

Apologise with a “z”. 

Vile.  

Mind you it would be good if Russian tank commanders have to apologise to Ukranians, with a "Z" on their tanks.

Perhaps they could alter it to VZ (Victory to Zelenskyy), or maybe just for his initials.

😎

[Uksilverstackers]

10 hours ago, Bigmarc said:

recently opened an account and they said I was going to get a cheque book

Cant remember the last time I used a cheque, dont even have the book anymore, shredded it eons ago.

As an aside, Is it still the same that one can pay online for road tax but they send a cheque for a refund 😬

[dicker]

The HMRC sent one of my companies a refund by cheque this week.

This is despite having all of my companies bank details, the company being registered on every available digital platform.

 

[TeaTime]

For most people the use of cheques stopped around the time Paypal became available.... As a teen with a cheque book i found it quite astounding that i was able to write a cheque out to 'Cash', walk in to my bank, and walk out with money.  It was like winning the Pools (no lottery in those days). Until the County Court summons arrived 😕 

[LawrenceChard]

14 hours ago, dicker said:

The HMRC sent one of my companies a refund by cheque this week.

This is despite having all of my companies bank details, the company being registered on every available digital platform.

 

How many companies have you got?

HMRC are almost indescribable!

😎

12 hours ago, TeaTime said:

For most people the use of cheques stopped around the time Paypal became available.... As a teen with a cheque book i found it quite astounding that i was able to write a cheque out to 'Cash', walk in to my bank, and walk out with money.  It was like winning the Pools (no lottery in those days). Until the County Court summons arrived 😕 

Whose cheques were you using?

😎

[Oddjob]

Banks in general hate accepting int'l cheques due to clearance risk and time frame for clearance they pose.

A standard domestic cheque (personal or bank) will clear in 1-3 days depending on your bank etc.

An international cheque has to be processed by the bank (who rec'd it) in the country of presentation then sent all the way back to country (and bank) of issuance for payment to the bank who accepted this....and this could take weeks or months.

Thus without knowing a companies specific arrangements with their bank, the bank may have been agreeable to clear the int'l cheque for their client (Negotiated clearance for a % fee) and take the clearance risk due to their relationship with that client hoping the cheque isn't dishonoured by bank of origin and the receiving bank eventually gets paid weeks later....(note, the bank still has the right to reverse the credit if the cheque is dishonoured weeks / months later). More generally, the bank will accept the int'l cheque without crediting funds to the payee's account then send the cheque bank to bank / country of origin (on Collection) for processing, which again takes weeks to await the cheque to clear and the issuing bank to send the funds electronically to the receiving bank....

I suspect that Chard's bank is trying to extract themselves from this service offering given it's a right PITA for any bank these days given the decline in the cheque product use, costs, clearance risk and processing times associated with cheque processing......Will be interested to see if Barclays open this service back up or it's just a step stone to ease the service offering out the door.

[LawrenceChard]

On 10/07/2022 at 02:11, Oddjob said:

Banks in general hate accepting int'l cheques due to clearance risk and time frame for clearance they pose.

A standard domestic cheque (personal or bank) will clear in 1-3 days depending on your bank etc.

An international cheque has to be processed by the bank (who rec'd it) in the country of presentation then sent all the way back to country (and bank) of issuance for payment to the bank who accepted this....and this could take weeks or months.

Thus without knowing a companies specific arrangements with their bank, the bank may have been agreeable to clear the int'l cheque for their client (Negotiated clearance for a % fee) and take the clearance risk due to their relationship with that client hoping the cheque isn't dishonoured by bank of origin and the receiving bank eventually gets paid weeks later....(note, the bank still has the right to reverse the credit if the cheque is dishonoured weeks / months later). More generally, the bank will accept the int'l cheque without crediting funds to the payee's account then send the cheque bank to bank / country of origin (on Collection) for processing, which again takes weeks to await the cheque to clear and the issuing bank to send the funds electronically to the receiving bank....

I suspect that Chard's bank is trying to extract themselves from this service offering given it's a right PITA for any bank these days given the decline in the cheque product use, costs, clearance risk and processing times associated with cheque processing......Will be interested to see if Barclays open this service back up or it's just a step stone to ease the service offering out the door.

Yes, much of that is probably relevant to this case.

We also have been trying to avoid being paid by foreign cheques for many years, as it is often a P.I.T.A., but it does go slightly against the grain to try to avoid being paid.

Many years ago, we used to get lots of US dollar cheques. Our bank at the time wanted about £4 each for processing them, and they only averaged about $10 to $20 each. We hunted around and found we could sell them to a merchant bank for a good rate, something around 5% of our own banks processing fee. I can remember using Johnson Matthey Bankers Limited and Brown Shipley.

Yesterday I saw:

"There is an issue with making payments on barclays."

Today, there were still problems, despite "Our service status
See how well our services are working
Check below for service status updates. If our services aren’t working as they should be, we’ll tell you here (planned or otherwise)."

Showing "no issues".

Eventually "Yessssssssssssssssssss it has! that was a stressful hour! i can now make payments using..."

So, I still don;t know what going on, or whether it is Barclays or other banking systems in genneral.